Thrice, Twice, Once More The Backspin Mix
by PalisDelon
Summary: Three times the Doctor lost Donna.


Thrice, Twice, Once More (The Backspin Mix)

He sat on the sofa, trying to explain to Sylvia and Wilfred what happened, what he had done, how he had to remove every trace of himself from Donna's memories.

"She was better with you," Wilfred said.

"I was better with her," he said softly, more to himself then the other two, sitting across from him, before taking a deep breath and continuing, "I just want you to know that there are worlds out there, safe in the sky, because of her. That there are people living in the light, singing songs of Donna Noble, a thousand, million light-years away... they will never forget her. While she can never remember."

Never remember how wonderful she had been.

Never remember everything they did together.

Never remember anywhere they had gone.

Never remember him.

"For one moment... one shining moment... she was the most important woman in the whole, wide universe." He closed his eyes against the pain of losing Donna for the third time in his life.

* * *

"Who is she?" Donna asked and, for a brief moment, he felt like passing out or throwing up - either way, something very un-Doctor-like.

"She's my daughter."

The face of his other daughter, his real daughter... their daughter, floated before him. Memories of first steps, first words and other milestones washed over him.

"Did you say... daughter?" Donna questioned and that prompted yet one more memory.

"_I got the coding for the loom done today. We're going to have a daughter."_

_His... ah, well... not wife, but, companion - yes, companion - swung around to look him in the eye. "Did you say daughter?" she asked._

_He nods slowly, "Would you rather it be a boy? I can do that. I'd need to switch a few lines in the midial for..."_

_Her lips cut off the rest of his ramblings._

* * *

There was a moment on the Ood planet when he thought Donna knew. When he brushed her mind, so she could hear the Ood song, he was so preoccupied that for a second that he used the pattern he had used hundreds of times before, the one that let her see him, just as much as he could see her.

And later, when the Ood started calling them "Doctor-Donna" and invited them to join the song, he had been swept away by the sheer joy of saving the day, once again, "I've sorta got a song of my own, thanks."

It had been on his lips, that wacky song his first companion made up, hundreds of years ago. No time to play, must save the day, around the world and far away. Dah dah dee dee, something about bananas and hats.

"I think your song must end soon."

Suddenly, he remembered where he was, and who he was with. "Meaning?" he asked.

Ood Sigma blinked several times before saying, "Every song must end."

* * *

When he had first met her, she had said something about having left him back in Ealing a few weeks before. Ealing, Chiswisk, nearly the same neighborhood. Or maybe he had remembered it wrong, it had been nearly nine hundred years ago.

Either way, there was her house, with her family inside, just like it had always been.

"I'd better get inside. They'll be worried." But she didn't move, just stood there – in her wedding dress - looking at him.

"Best Christmas present they could have. Oh, no. I forgot..." he felt the smile that only she could bring out tug at the corners of his mouth "You hate Christmas."

She smiled back at him and, for a moment, he felt like he was a boy again. "Yes, I do."

"Even if it snows?"

She had always loved the snow.

"You could always... well... come with me," he asked slowly.

"No."

And, just like that, he's lost her again. Lost her for the second time.

* * *

"What?!"

It was just too much to take in. He had just – _just_ – lost Rose. Now, standing here in the TARDIS was a woman in a wedding dress.

"What?!"

A red-haired woman in a wedding dress.

"What?!"

_**The**_ red-haired woman who had never put on a wedding dress for him.

"What?!"

* * *

He knew that it would end like this. That, one day, he would lose her to time.

Time.

He was a Time Lord, he saw everything that was and everything that could be, but he couldn't stop her from growing old.

"I can hear you thinking," she said softly. "There's nothing you can do. Silly Martian, you may call yourself the Doctor, but you can't fix everything."

"But what's the fun if I don't try?"

He held her hand and lost her for the first time.

* * *

He had always had a secret longing to visit Earth, now here he was. Japan, in the early part of the 21st century. It was everything his boyhood dreams had conjured: cities teaming with neon-colored nightlife, countrysides filled with flowers and ancient temples, women dressed in hundred-year-old garb, speaking on cell phones smaller than their hands. History and technology mixed together in a glorious dance.

Then there was the woman.

Obviously, a traveler, you didn't get hair that bright or skin that pale in the general genetic makeup of this area of the planet.

"Excuse me," he said, "but have you ever been a wanderer in the fourth dimension?"

It was a silly question to ask, but there was an air about her that said she had seen things no one else could even guess at.

"Oh," she looked surprised and, for a moment, he thought she might just turn away and ignore him. "You're a Martian, too," she said after studying him. "I don't have some sort of time-energy sticking to me, do I?"

The frankness of the statement made him laugh. "What's your name, young lady?"

"Donna Noble," she said as the most becoming blush spread over her cheeks.

He bent over her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Donna. I'm the Doctor."


End file.
